Saturday, November 13, 2010

Birthday Fun

Yesterday was my birthday and absolutely amazing! It started with the normal routine of breakfast and getting the boys off to school. Then I decided to take a stroll in to the plaza to buy flowers for myself because I love them and I was sure that today I had a good excuse. I also stopped at the bakery for 2 freshly baked chocolate glazed donuts (grand total for 2 donuts and 3 bunches of flowers = $1).

We also had a field trip planned for the day (my first one since arriving) to a farm. So we gathered all the boys who weren’t in school and set out. It was a really beautiful farm that had lots of eco-friendly plans in use (solar cooking, solar water heating, gas from the compost pile collected for cooking on cloudy days, a waterless bathroom that resulted in compost, etc), lots of vegetable, a sheep, guinea pigs (we eat them here in Bolivia!), and 47 milking cows! The boys loved it and had lots of questions. We returned to the BLC for lunch, sent the boys off to school, and collected the boys that were returning for another trip to the farm!

The older boys went to the school soccer field to play at night, like they do every Friday but I decided not to accompany them this time. Just as I was falling asleep, I received a call from their supervisor saying that one of them had hurt his ankle and couldn’t walk and I needed to come see them right away. Since I had been nearly asleep, I fell for it and rushed to their dorm. As soon as I entered their room, the lights went out and the “hurt” boy jumped off the table revealing the bread and candle hidden behind him. They started singing happy birthday (rather terribly I must admit) and I knew that I was doomed having previously seen the Bolivian birthday tradition. As the song was coming to a close, they attacked. “Making birthday cake” they cracked 4 raw eggs over my head and then dumped a bag of flour on top!

How many people can say they had a wonderful day that ended with egg shell in their shower drain?

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